7 Hot Industries for Starting a Business Right Now

7 Best Industries for Starting a Business Right Now | Image Source: linkedin.com

Starting and growing a successful business is one of the biggest challenges new and existing entrepreneurs face. Many have dying or slow growing businesses, and so, are constantly on the lookout for hot business opportunities they could diversify their portfolios to or start up from scratch.

While eventually growing a successful business is the ultimate goal of every entrepreneur, their first trials mostly lead to failures and disappointments.

If you find yourself or business in this situation and can’t think of what industry you could profitably venture into, here are 7 best industries to start a business in right now, in Nigeria or Africa:

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1). Procurement And Supply Chain:

Large and small organisations always have a wide variety of items they purchase monthly. Some of these items come at a high cost to them, both in monetary value and time; and so, they go on to sign up suppliers who bring in these items to their organisations monthly at reduced costs and delayed payments.

Some hot procurement areas in Nigeria that’s making suppliers with a wide network earn a lot of income are diesel supplies, office furniture and equipment supplies, food supplies, and a host of others.

When in doubt and don’t know what to do with your money, find a recurrent supply niche and let organisations know you can always deliver to them monthly at a reduced price and on credit. This way, you don’t take the risks of making investments, but rather only spend when a request is made.

2). Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG):

For a long period of time, the FCMG industry has been one of the fastest growing sectors in Africa. This is largely facilitated by the fact that there’s a fast growing middle class population with a higher spending power, which is indirectly triggering an increase in the purchase of FCMG products both in Nigeria and many parts of Africa.

A report by KPMG in 2015 said that: “The FMCG sector in Africa has significant scope to expand. Poverty levels in especially, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), are still quite high, with food and other necessities dominating consumer budgets. For this reason, the food sub-sector of FMCG has a very large market to cater for, while penetration rates in the other categories still have significant room to expand.”

The study shows the potentials of the industry, its prospects for an even more accelerated growth, and the wide opportunities that it holds.

3). Integrated Marketing Communications:

Thousands of small, medium, and large businesses in Nigeria, Africa, and around the world are trying to build their brand awareness, and in the process, exponentially grow their revenues. To achieve this, they turn to Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) firms whose primary mode of operation is to expand both modern and traditional marketing strategies to send consistent emotional and highly converting messages of a brand to their customers and prospects.

The top IMCs are usually good at what they do, and record immense success in most of their marketing campaigns.

If you have a wide network of potential clients, you could poach a creative director or group head working in an IMC, and co-start one together. You could leverage your network to help the organisation gain a lot of initial clients fast, and let your partner build the creative team that can make your campaigns succeed.

4). Real Estate:

While a bad economy coupled with a low consumer spending power, because of gross inflations happening in many countries in Africa, is supposed to serve as a turn off for people thinking of investing in the real estate industry, the reverse has fortunately been the case.

More lands than houses are now being sold in Nigeria, with people flocking in large numbers to make a purchase, because of both an unconscious sense of security for their hard-earned money and also the fact that everyone else is doing it. This is one of the reasons almost every real estate company in Nigeria is promoting amazing land deals, since they’re the fastest selling real estate commodities right now.

You could take advantage of this real estate trend by signing up as an agent for a real estate company. This way, you could earn between 2.5% to 10% on every landed property sold through you.

5). Employment & Recruitment:

The global crash in the value of crude oil didn’t just drop the economic output of many countries, but also tremendously increased the rate of unemployment worldwide. In Nigeria for instance, the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the unemployment rate in the 2nd quarter of 2016 experienced an increase from 13.3% to 13.9% by the third quarter. This meant that the number of unemployed people in the country as at 2016 rose by 555,311 people.

This negative increase in the number of unemployed people in the country has driven the rise of many more employment and recruitment agencies. Some of the pre-existing companies like SlateCube, PushCV, NGCareers, and even Jobberman have all diversified their services to go even deeper in the industry.

While online versions are not the only types out there, there are a couple of other successful offline recruitment agencies taking advantage of the dire economic situation, making it one of the top lucrative industries to venture into in Nigeria and many other countries in Africa.

6). Agriculture

The widespread clamour for agriculture as a way to salvage the failing economic situation in Nigeria and several other countries, sends a strong message to a lot of wannabe and existing entrepreneurs. This shows that the governments are ready to support them and also make a lot of resources available to ensure their success.

Some branches of agriculture to venture into are cassava farming, poultry farming, fish farming, rice farming, and even agricultural logistics. According to the fao.org, rice farming is the most profitable aspect of agriculture in Nigeria.

These nationwide supports and published researches shows that the government is bent on seeing a sizeable number of farmers succeed, whom would then go on to become the agricultural conglomerates of the future.

7). Consulting:

While there are many industries to venture into, consulting is one of the most lucrative.

Most businesses that secure sizeable bank loans don’t like to make trials and errors with the funds they receive. This sole reason drives them to go in search of experts that can guide them through the early stages of their businesses till they achieve reasonable success.

If you have a vast business experience or have spent time working in a key position at a consulting firm, you can put together a team of experienced entrepreneurs who would form the foundation for your company and give it the credibility it would need to make businesses and entrepreneurs trust you enough to pay for your services.

What are your thoughts on these 7 best industries for starting a business right now in Nigeria or Africa? Let me know by leaving a comment below:

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About Stan Edom

I'm an entrepreneur with an expertise in supply chain management, small business development, e-commerce, internet startups, and agriculture. In my spare time, I'm always trying to solve problems people face in their everyday lives with tech.